Missy and Methos (sequel to The Shadow of the Daleks)
by calliarcale
Summary: Just a quick sketch that popped into my head one day; I'm working towards a full-length sequel to "The Shadow of the Daleks", and this fell out along the ways. Missy probably won't be in the next story, but I did want to have a little fun with her. ;-) This takes place in 2014, during Missy's Nethersphere operation.


London was exactly as Methos remembered it - simultaneously exciting and dull. The sky was its usual uniform gray, the Thames reflecting it back as the tide receeded, and the streets were full of people walking to and from work and appointments, studiously ignoring one another. It really was the perfect place to blend in for a bit. As much as he talked about fleeing to exotic South Pacific islands, it was much easier to hide in a city. So much more camouflage, and of course the utilities were generally a good deal more reliable. More expensive as well, alas, but after five thousand years, he had no real worry about money, especially as he had long since grown out of the concept of material acquisition.

Today found Methos strolling along the Embankment, feeling the breeze on his face, and wondering how long he'd stay here. Perhaps it was time to return to Paris, or maybe cross the Atlantic and live in America for a while. Berlin could be fun. Asia might be a nice change of pace, except that he wanted to blend, and his European features would be a little too conspicuous. Or he could get a big city and the tropics at once, and spend a little time in Rio.

There was plenty of time to consider his options. Today he would simply pass the time, with no obligations to pull him one way or the other.

He sat down on a bench and watched the passers by. A street vendor was setting up a bookstand just down the way, unfolding tables and methodically laying out his wares with smooth, calm, practiced movements. He had clearly done this every day for a long time, and Methos wondered how many of the books had been making the same trip out of their boxes and onto the table and back again every time.

"Mind if I sit here?" asked a woman.

Methos turned to look. The woman was in her forties or fifties, and wore a severe Edwardian style dress, complete with bustle and pillbox hat pinned to a tight updo. She looked like a particularly old-fashioned governess. "Not at all," replied Methos, and scootched down a few inches to make more room.

She sat down and sighed, stretching her legs and wiggling her feet with obvious pleasure. "Been on me pins for, oo, it seems like days," she said. "Feels so good to rest them a bit." Her accent was straight out of Glasgow, and apart from a passing resemblance to Mary Poppins, her face was completely unfamiliar. But there was something oddly familiar about her. Something disquieting, since he was certain he'd never laid eyes on her in his life.

She turned and gave Methos a smile that was probably supposed to be dazzling, and probably would have been if not for the predatory glint in her eye. "And how are you, love? It's been positively lifetimes since I've seen you."

Methos' eyes narrowed briefly, then he affected an air of detached indifference. "I'm fine. Sorry, do I know you?"

She threw her head back and laughed, full, deep belly-laughs sprinkled with some very unladylike snorts. When she got herself back under control, she smiled at him. "Oh, of course you don't recognize me. I've got a new face. Well. A new everything, I suppose." She winked coquettishly.

Methos frowned. A new face? Was she a Time Lord?

At the very moment he thought that, she nodded encouragingly. "Yes dear, you've nearly got it." She gave a little moue. "Oh, just say it, please?"

"You're a Time Lord?"

Her face broke into a beatific smile and she nodded slowly, as if praising a particularly dim student for finally grasping the lesson. "Yes! You've got it! Well, Time *Lady* would be more proper. But I won't mark you down for that."

Methos only knew one Time Lord, and he was absolutely certain this was not the Doctor. Besides, the Doctor was a man. He'd never met any female Time Lords. Unless Time Lords could change sex? Or maybe she knew him in the future? That was a worrying thought. But his skin crawled up his back, telling him that no, that wasn't quite right, and although he didn't want to think about it, absolutely didn't want to even conceive of it, there was in fact one other Time Lord he had met, and known far too intimately, more intimately than he'd ever thought possible...

The sinister Glaswegian Mary Poppins was smirking at him now, and that underlying supposition was getting harder to ignore. She turned abruptly to look out at the river. "It's good to be in London again. Seems to be the best place to meet my boyfriend."

Methos blinked. "Boyfriend?"

"Yes!" she said. "Oh, you've met, of course, but don't waste time getting jealous. He'll be along to try and kill me again, and then not be able to do it at the last minute. So predictable." She waved a hand airily.

"Your . . . " He stopped trying to understand it. The nagging truth was really getting quite irritating, but he didn't want to think it. Would not think it. The Master was dead. Surely. Had to be. And wasn't a lady anyway. This was doubtless someone from his future. "Look," he said. "I really don't know who you are, but if you're a Time Lord that probably just means we haven't met yet. So I think it's time I was going." With that he stood and started walking briskly away before she could stop him.

"Oh, my poor dear Methos!" she called, her voice dripping condescension.

He stopped stock still at the sound of his real name, and turned.

She was still smiling, but now with a knowing gleam in her eyes. "I do pride myself on being able to turn a man's head," she said. She patted the bench beside her, but Methos didn't come closer. She rolled her eyes dramatically, putting Methos in mind of a thirteen year old girl being told off by her parents. She leaned back on the bench and crossed her legs, sprawling her arms along the backrest. "The Daleks killed me, you know. Put me on trial! What a ridiculous notion. Not that I'd commit a crime, mind you, but that the Daleks would bother with a trial." She chuckled. "But I had a trick, you know. I asked they send my remains home to Gallifrey for burial, and asked that the Doctor do the honors." She leaned forward and stage-whispered conspiratorially. "The walking guilt complex couldn't say no, you see, or scatter me in a supernova. He'd have to do it right." She leaned back. "I wasn't completly dead yet. Ooh, being a puddle of goo was not a lot of fun. But I'd planned, you see. My last body, after the Trakenite bit the dust, had a bit more ability to stay alive than most, since I'd riddled it through with nanites."

"Why are you telling me all this?"

She started at him as if he were a complete idiot. "For fun, love. For fun. Now, don't interrupt! Where was I... Ah yes. I forced the Doctor's TARDIS down, and was planning on taking his body. But the Doctor went and got himself shot, the poor dear, and so I had to find a human to use for a bit." She shook her head sadly. "I'm afraid I broke it. Humans are so fragile, don't you agree? I got stuck in the TARDIS again, and then the Doctor managed to land in one of those extraordinary Quickenings you people have!" She clapped her hands in delight, and Methos recoiled. The nagging certainty could no longer be ignored, and he wanted very much to run, but somehow he couldn't. He stood rooted to the spot. "Immortals aren't as good as Gallifreyans - such tiny little brains - but the Immortality is such a *useful* little feature, don't you think? So I was having a lovely time, right up until you came along and took my head." She pouted at him, but only a for a moment before smiling indulgently. "But I won't hold it against you, love. You were only doing what your lot do. And anyway, I think you were a bit of a trade up. It was nice riding in your head. Five thousand years, can you imagine? Oh of course you can, how silly of me."

Methos' skin now felt like it was trying to evacuate. His guts were roiling, and he had broken out in a cold sweat. "You're the Master," he finally said.

"I go by Missy now, of course," she said. "Master just doesn't work since my last regeneration." She smiled. "That's right, I've got a proper body again. Gallifrey went to war and so they found me - oh, don't bother asking how, it's boring - and offered me a complete regeneration cycle if I came back and fought." She shrugged. "It was the second time they'd offered; it was time they paid up."

"You're the Ma . . . Missy?"

She rolled her eyes again. "Such tiny little brains," she repeated. "It's short for Mistress. Now stop gawping, you look ridiculous." She stood and swung her umbrella up over her shoulder. Methos instinctively recoiled at the motion, but she put her other hand out to steady him. "Jumpy, aren't we? Well, I suppose you have the right." She looked up at the overcast sky. "It's going to rain," she said. "Not today. But it will rain." She smiled knowingly, as if at some private joke that she fully expected him to get, but of course he didn't. "Now, you run along, chop off some heads, be a good boy. Mummy has to get ready to meet her boyfriend."

Methos shook his head in confusion. "Who?"

She groaned in frustration. "Humans. Look, if you can't figure it out, I'm not telling you." She leaned in close to him, entirely too close. He backed away and she pursued, her eyes growing ever more intense until he was in danger of losing himself in her hypnotic gaze. It wasn't the least bit romantic, though. Despite her posture and her body pressed against his, the gaze was all compulsion, not seduction, and Methos found he could no longer move, nor even think clearly, caught like a fly in Missy's mesmerizing stare. "I know you, Methos. I *know* every . . . single . . . inch . . . of your body. Inside and out, but mostly inside." She was whispering again, this time too quietly to be heard from more than a few inches. "I know your secrets, the things you don't dare tell anyone, because when I was bored I looked through your memories. You're a survivor and a psychopath, and I know because it takes one to know one. You know the pleasure of killing a person just because you can. You know the joy of removing someone's freedom, bit by bit, destroying everything that keeps them going. You know the thrill of staying one step ahead, of knowing something nobody else does, and how to use that against everyone. You know how to use others, how to destroy them when you're done with them, and how to be ruthless. You know how to appear at once harmless and indispensible, and how to be ready with a knife when their backs are turned." She frowned at him. "And then you renounced all that. All but survival. You're good at surviving, but what's the point if you aren't living it up a little?"

She stepped back, and the curious spell was broken. Methos let out a long, ragged breath as she made an exaggerated show of checking a wristwatch, although the thing on her wrist looked far too complicated to really be just a watch. "Oh, would you look at the time," she said. "It really was lovely bumping into an old body again, but I have places to go, people to kill . . . oh, you know how it is." She smiled sweetly.

"What are you . . ." started Methos, but Missy cut him off.

"No," she said. "Don't bother. You're not cut out for the hero job, and anyway, I'm waiting for my boyfriend to figure it out first. I think I have an idea how to advance the timetable. Get that little pet of his upset. Now, you just pop off and go on surviving, before I change my mind and have a bit of fun with you." She grinned, a nasty, hungry grin that showed all her teeth. "That's the lovely thing about Immortals. You get to kill them more than once. But as long as you're just surviving and not getting in my way, I'll let you be, for old time's sake."

Then she adjusted the device that wasn't a wristwatch and vanished into thin air.

Methos stood there, the cold sweat drying on his skin, with no idea what to believe about what had just happened.

Forget London. Forget big cities. Tahiti's the place to be. In twenty-four hours, he could be lazing on the beach with a ridiculous cocktail in his hand, trying to forget this had ever happened.

Methos turned on his heel and headed towards his hotel to start packing.


End file.
